Protected areas

The main response to loss of natural habitat has been
the establishment and extension of protected areas. Overall, approximately
7 per cent of the land area of Africa has been designated as protected.
In total, Africa contains 1 254 protected areas (UNEP-WCMC 2001b), including
198 marine protected areas, 50 biosphere reserves, 80 Wetlands of International
Importance and 34 World Heritage sites (UNDP, UNEP, World Bank and WRI
2000).

Protected areas: Africa

Note: number of protected areas includes those
in IUCN categories I-VI

Source: compiled from UNEP-WCMC 2001b

Protected area coverage differs markedly
within Africa; for example, a substantially higher proportion of the land
area is designated as protected in Southern Africa than in other sub-regions
(see graphic). Lack of financial support and weak law enforcement are
common problems in African protected areas, resulting in encroachment
by human activities and settlements. However, sub-Saharan Africa accounts
for 18 per cent of the global mean investment in protected areas (James
1996). Protected areas are being increasingly managed for multiple uses,
including tourism and sport hunting.

Some 52 African countries are party to the Convention
on Biological Diversity, 48 countries are party to CITES, and 22 are party
to CMS. This is reflected at the national level in the development of
national action plans and strategies for the environment, biodiversity
and conservation. Financial assistance from a range of bilateral and multilateral
donors offers opportunities to address the key issues relating to biodiversity
and to promote sub-regional cooperation in conservation. Several transfrontier
reserves are being established in Southern and Eastern Africa.

During the colonial era, conservation policies were often
based on protectionism that ignored the needs of African people, by imposing
hunting restrictions and excluding people from reserves. Protected areas
fell under this category and have been described as 'fortress conservation'
(Adams and Hulme 2001). Policies on wildlife conservation have since changed
with communities living adjacent to national parks being considered as
partners; a key trend during the past three decades has been the increasing
involvement of local people in conservation initiatives. Community-based
conservation (CBC) programmes seek to achieve this by allowing people
living near protected areas to participate in land management decisions,
giving people rights to wildlife resources and ensuring that local people
derive economic benefit from wildlife conservation (Hackel 1999). Some,
however, argue that community conservation is no panacea (Adams and Hulme
2001). It has been argued that CBC projects are not primarily established
to achieve biodiversity conservation goals but are usually based on the
sustainable harvest of living organisms.